Dalrymple moment

They rented, not bought, the house. They have a very expensive, very large big red Dodge truck with what looks like a enclosed motorcycle trailer, almost the same color. They're in their late 20's, and they have five children. The two-year-old roams the street, unsupervised. The children, unkempt, apparently unwashed for several days in a row, seem almost desperate to make friends with those next door.

Yesterday, a big blue truck with Rent-A-Center came up the road. They unpacked a big stereo system and a huge wall-mounted plasma television.

Their regular friends drive a beat-up Kawasaki motorcycle, the rider cheaply armored if at all, and a totally cherried Nissan ricer, low to the ground with a sweet glossly-blue-and-logo paint job that must have cost a fortune.

Meet my new neighbors.

Actually, I haven't met any of the adults yet, but from what I've seen, things aren't promising. There's something about the Rent-A-Center television and the five children that makes me feel like I'm having a Darlyrmple moment. It might take a while for me to figure out if they're happy people or not, but I expect not. A six-thousand dollar rental television, an expensive truck and a rental home, indicates a deep-rooted expectation of instant gratification, the deprivation of which would be construed as suffering. "Much modern suffering has a distinct flavor of self-infliction. I am not talking now of the physical illnesses that derive from habits such as smoking, but rather of the chronic suffering caused by not knowing how to live, or rather by imagining that life can be lived as an entertainment, as an extended video, as nothing but a series of pleasures of the moment."

A prediction!

Someday, I predict, Kouryou-chan will do this to me. I hope I have a similar reaction.

(Have I ever mentioned how much I absolutely adore Mac Hall?)

Wine, Meatloaf, and Weeds

Well, this afternoon I arrived home early enough to make a meatloaf, toss it into the oven, then go outside and do a solid hour of weeding. And believe me, it needed it. I must have hauled a full forty gallon bag of weeds out of there, and it all still looks crappy, but it's less crappy than it was before. Afterwards, I felt like I needed a shower because I was covered in pollen.

The meatloaf was straightforward, although I put in an egg and some softened breadcrumbs. Given how hot it's suddenly become and just how little I was in the mood for something heavy like beer, I decided to try an experiment and mixed three parts Late Harvest Rheisling with five parts ginger ale, over ice, to fake up a wine cooler. Actually, it was very good! Even Omaha liked it.

And I wrote three thousand words today. They weren't on the story I was planning on writing, but they were three thousand words that I don't feel guilty about not having written.